James Weaver on Quantum Computing and Java

EarthCubeFX on JavaFX 2.0 from OSCON/Java 2011 Keynote (w/code download)

During the JavaFX keynote at OSCON/Java a few days ago I demonstrated the the EarthCubeFX application ported to JavaFX 2.0.  In the session I promised to make the code available on my blog, so here is a link from which you can download the EarthCubeX project (for NetBeans IDE).  Some helpful tips:

• After downloading the ZIP file, expand the project into a directory of your choice.  
• Start NetBeans, and select the File -> Open Project menu.From the Open Project dialog box, 
• Navigate to your chosen directory and open the EarthCubeX project.  If you receive a message dialog stating that the jfxrt.jar file can't be found, click the Resolve button and navigate to the rt/lib folder subordinate to where you installed the JavaFX 2.0 SDK. 
• Note: You can obtain the NetBeans IDE from the NetBeans site.

Also, although JavaFX 2.0 for Mac OS will be released after JavaFX 2.0 for Windows is released, it doesn't seem to be far behind, as this video of EarthCube on an early access version of JavaFX for Mac OS demonstrates.

Regards,

Jim Weaver

JavaFX 1.3 Leakage at Devoxx 2009

I love it when Sun employees like Richard Bair and Jasper Potts demonstrate features, and show code samples (in wet concrete of course), for upcoming JavaFX releases. In this post I'd like to bring some of these Sun-leaked features and code samples to light.  Please note that this talk was a preview, and things will of course change before the final JavaFX 1.3 release.

 

From Enterprising JavaFX by Richard and Jasper at Devoxx (and the 1960-70s judging from the Devoxx theme-art this year)

After delivering a brilliant explanation of how to use the JavaFX Task API (introduced in JavaFX 1.2), Richard went on to expose some of the planned JavaFX 1.3 controls.  Here's a shot of the slide that denotes some of the UI controls in 1.3 with asterisks:

The ListView, TreeView and TableView controls will allow you to customize their contents with the use of the Cell class shown in the shot below:

To create a custom cell, use the cellFactory function reference of the ListView, TreeView or TableView classes, and supply background, node, and/or foreground values.  This approach allows the runtime to memory manage cell instances:

Please note that ListView was introduced in 1.2, but will be greatly improved in 1.3.  TreeView will be introduced in a basic form in 1.3, and TableView will be released post-1.3.

Here's a busy shot of a UI controls demo from Richard, for which Jasper later apologized because the demo isn't skinned to Jasper's liking:

Later, Jasper discussed the strategies for styling JavaFX components moving forward  as shown in the shot below, and then focused on CSS for styling components on desktop, mobile and TV:

Here's an example of using CSS to style the scene, which cascades to controls contained by the scene:

Jasper then discussed the regions construct that will be included as an internal API in 1.3, and possibly exposed to developers in future releases:

 

Regions can be used, for example, to help create custom component such as the ScrollBar shown below:

Another upcoming item of interest from this presentation is that the underlying graphical toolkits will be replaced (post-JavaFX 1.3) with Prism, which will provide a much faster UI and a common toolkit across devices on which JavaFX is deployed.

This post has only scratched the surface of what was presented in the hour-long Enterprising JavaFX session at Devoxx, but hopefully it gave you a taste of some the many features coming in JavaFX 1.3.  Thanks to Jasper and Rich for sharing!

Regards,

Jim Weaver

This is your Brain on Devoxx

Java Champion, JavaOne Rock Star, and all-around good guy Stephen Chin is going to teach JavaFX and give away stuff at Devoxx 2009 in Antwerp, Belgium.

He'll first teach a university session to get you up to speed on the JavaFX platform, and later in the week will show you how to build Rich Internet Applications for the enterprise.

Leading up to both these sessions Stephen will post a question via the LearnFX application (see this blog post for more info on LearnFX).  To win a prize, all you have to do is:

1. Answer the question correctly using the LearnFX client
2. Come to the next Devoxx session that Stephen Chin is speaking at
3. Winners will be selected by a random drawing from all the correct responses

To run the LearnFX application, make sure that you have a recent version (update 14 or later) of Java SE 6, and simply click on the blue brain LearnFX icon in the Devoxx logo at the top of this post.  Please don't tell Stephan Janssen (the Devoxx conference organizer) that I desecrated his logo. :-)

Break a leg, Stephen!

P.S. Last year I posted the Whack-a-Janssen game in honor of the great job that Stephen Janssen does (with the awesome help of Valérie Hillewaere and Kristien Leyn) in organizing Devoxx.

Take a whack at this now-retro game!

Regards,

Jim Weaver

Win atom and bit-based Pro JavaFX books at Øredev 2009 RIA session Fri 3:35pm CET

Readers of this blog know that I like to hold contests to make things fun and encourage participation (e.g. see the 2000 USD JavaFXpert RIA Exemplar Challenge that ends 10 January, 2010).  In keeping with that sentiment, some JavaFX questions relevant to my presentation will be tweeted by @projavafxcourse to the twitterverse during the Øredev 2009 RIA Enterprise Application Developing with JavaFX session.

The seven people that earn the highest scores by tweeting fast, correct, answers to these questions will each win a copy of the Pro JavaFX book.  Six of these books will be composed of bits (e-books), and one will be composed of atoms.  The atom-based book is reserved for the person with the highest score of those present in the audience, but the e-books will be awarded (via an emailed Apress coupon) to the winners regardless on their location during the session.  This session starts on Friday,  November 6 at 3:35pm CET, lasting until 4:25pm, so please have your Twitter client ready.  When you tweet an answer, be sure to reply to the original tweet with your answer. 

On a technical note, all correct answers consist of one word or character, and the software that checks for a correct answer trims the spaces from the end of the reply and then uses the string found between the final space and the end of the reply.  So, if you want to put other words in your reply, presumably to give your followers a clue about what your terse message is, just make sure that your answer is at the end of your response.  For example, you might reply to the question:

The name of the layout class that arranges UI nodes horizontally is ____

with this message:

Answering a JavaFXpert presentation question with HBox

If you want to use an application that I'm developing for the purpose of responding to these questions, please make sure that you have a recent version (update 14 or later) of Java SE 6 and click the LearnFX icon over on the left. 

When the application starts up, the most recent question is displayed as shown in the screenshot below.  If the question is still active (i.e. the answer has not been revealed), then the text box will be enabled, allowing you to enter an answer and click the Send button or press the Enter key.  Responses that have been received appear as well, along with the the Twitter profile image, screen name, and indication of whether the question is correct (if the answer has been revealed -- if not, a question mark will be displayed).

  

The first time that you run the application, you'll need to click the configuration icon to open the configuration dialog shown below, in which you can enter your Twitter screen name and password, as well as some preferences.  This information is stored on your local machine, and automatically loaded on subsequent invocations of the application.

Until the contest begins, there is a sample question available if you wish to give this application a try before the real questions begin appearing.  By the way, when you use the LearnFX client, your tweet is a reply to the projavafxcourse user, and the message contains the following with the question ID, and answer that you supply, added to the end:

@projavafxcourse Answering JavaFXpert question http://bit.ly/2dn1kK

The bit.ly link in the message may be clicked by your followers to see what your strange tweet is about :-)

There is a WidgetFX version of this application in the works that I'll release and blog about in a subsequent post.  By the way, I'd like to publicly thank Steven Herod for the Twitter API this application uses, which he donated to the open source JFXtras project.

Regards, and good luck!  Please leave a comment if you have any questions,

Jim Weaver

Music Explorer FX *Mobile Edition* by Sten Anderson

Sten Anderson, winner of the Sun JavaFX Coding Challenge with his Music Explorer FX app, has just released a version for JavaFX Mobile.  Sten donated the source code to the JFXtras project, and has provided a write-up in his blog which includes a Java Web Start link.

Music Explorer FX Mobile Edition is a great resource/reference for creating JavaFX Mobile apps, so check it out!

Enjoy, and thanks Sten,

Jim Weaver

You had me at Least Common Multiple :-)

One of the student winners of the the JavaFX Coding Challenge is Kazuki Hamasaki, who created the CalcFX program.  CalcFX is a deceptively functional (and incredibly useful) calculator, and is now one of the Java Web Start shortcuts on my desktop.

Kazuki: If you're reading this, please create a desktop icon for CalcFX so that it doesn't blend in with the usual coffee-cup icons deposited by Java Web Start.  For those wondering, just put the following line subordinate to the information element of the JNLP file:

<icon href="some_icon.png" width="64" height="64"/>

Congrats, and nice work, Kazuki!

Jim Weaver

The End is Near (for the September '09 JFXStudio Coding Challenge)

If you've hung around senior [-citizen] programmers (or are one), you've no doubt heard tales such as "we only had 4K of memory, and had to make use of every byte/bit".  For your amusement and edification, here's a picture from thegreatgeekmanual.com of the first Apple II (circa 1977), which sported 4K of RAM:

Josh Marinacci's latest JavaFX Studio Challenge is a bit reminiscent of these good old days, in that he is encouraging us to create a cool JavaFX program that "must not be more than 30 lines of code or 3000 characters (your choice)".

The deadline for submitting your entry for this JFXStudio Challenge is midnight Wednesday night (30 September 2009). The challenge is to create something cool in only 30 lines of JavaFX Script code, using the theme of 'Time'. To give you some ideas Josh has posted his own entry. Take a look for some inspiration!

Speaking of contests, the winners of the WidgetFX Developers Contest were announced yesterday, and I'd like to convey my congratulations to Pär Dahlberg (ScreenshotFX widget), Yannick Van Godtsenhoven (RadioFX widget), and Larry Dickson (Weather widget).  A screenshot of these widgets in the WidgetFX dock is shown on the right. I'm using the RadioFX widget as I'm writing this to listen to an internet music channel that plays baroque music.

Regards, and congratulations again to these winners!

Jim Weaver

Full-Page JavaFX Applets: Exercising Resizing

As I mentioned the previous article in this series, the next step in the development of the BandmatesFX program will be to enable the user to navigate more general information than just musicians and bands.  In this article, I've added the ability to navigate soccer players and their teams.  In addition, the program (whose working title is now Topic Map Navigator), can be deployed as a full-browser-page JavaFX applet.  Shown below is a screenshot of the program running in a Chrome 2.0 browser, and it also runs in FireFox 3.5+ and Internet Explorer 7+.  You'll usually need have Java SE 6 update 10+ in order for the applet to run in the browser (e.g. on Mac with Java 1.5 this app opens in its own window).

One of the features of this program is that it opens a web page when you right-click on an image.  Deploying this program in the browser makes this a tighter experience, because the page appears on top of the Topic Map Navigator program.  When you subsequently close the web page, the program is revealed again.  The screenshot below shows the result of clicking the secondary mouse button on the picture of Lionel Messi, and then clicking the Wikipedia link from his Freebase web page that appears. You may also recall from previous articles in this series that clicking the primary mouse button on an image moves that person to the top of the app.

If you have a late-model Chrome, FireFox or Internet Explorer browser, and Java SE 6 update 10+, go ahead an run this program as a JavaFX applet.  If not, you can launch the program via Java Web Start by clicking the Launch button below.  Note: Please leave a comment if you have any difficulty deploying this JavaFX applet, providing your hardware/OS/browser/Java version information.  I'll report these difficulties to the JavaFX JIRA issue tracker, as I'd like for the JavaFX applet deployment experience to be as solid as it is when deploying with Java Web Start.

Exercising Resizing

In order for the JavaFX applet to occupy the full browser page, we change the width and height of the applet to 100% in the HTML file as shown in the snippet below.

  javafx(
    {
      archive: "TopicMapNavigator.jar",
      draggable: true,
      width: "100%",
      height: "100%",
      code: "org.jfxtras.topicmapnav.ui.TopicMapNavMain",
      name: "TopicMapNavigator",
      loading_image_url: "http://www.jmentor.com/JavaFX_1-2/TopicMapNavigator/images/guitar.png",
      loading_image_width: 500,
      loading_image_height: 350
    }
  );

When the browser page is resized, the width and height values of the JavaFX Stage change dynamically.  You can bind to these values and control the appearance of the program, using layout classes that are provided with JavaFX.  In addition, the JFXtras project has some classes such as ResizableScene, ResizableCustomNode, ResizableHBox and ResizableVBox that make quick work of responding to a resized Stage.  For example, the Topic Map Navigator program uses these classes, and the resizable Shelf class, to automatically reposition and scale the cover flows when the user resizes the program.

Regards, and please let me know if you have any questions,

Jim Weaver

Sten Anderson Wins the JavaFX Coding Challenge with a Rockin App!

Congratulations to the winners of the JavaFX Coding Challenge: Sten Anderson, Naoaki Suganuma, and Evgeni Sergeev!  The apps written by all three winners are oustanding, and 1st-place winner Sten Anderson's Music Explorer FX app is IMHO brilliant!  Here's a screenshot from the app:

Sten's JavaFX app enables the user to navigate among musical artists whose music has a degree of similarity by making use of Echo Nest web services.  The Music Explorer FX app has a graphically pleasing user interface that helps the user explore interesting details about musical artists and the connections between them.  The Help page even features one of my favorite groups: Liquid Tension Experiment :-)

Congrats again to Sten, Naoaki and Evgen!

Jim Weaver

Making Music (and Software) with My Friends in JavaFX

It's great to finally be able to give you some details about a cool JavaFX project in which I've had the privilege of participating.  For the last couple of months, some co-workers at Veriana and I have been helping Indaba Music create an internet-based, collaborative recording studio named Indaba Console 2.0.  The alpha release was this morning (July 9, 2009) and it is written entirely in JavaFX/Java.  Check out this screenshot, and a Wired article that contains a demonstration video by musician and co-founder Dan Zaccagnino.

If you were at JavaOne 2009 you may remember the JavaFX panel session on which Chris Danzig (Indaba co-founder) and I participated.

One of the main reasons that Indaba chose JavaFX/Java is that it enables recording high-quality audio directly onto the client platform.  This is achieved by leveraging the capability of JavaFX to call Java methods, and Java to call JavaFX functions.  One person with whom we work closely is Bjorn Roche, who created a Java-based facility and API that interacts with the audio capabilities of the client machine.  The JavaFX portion of the Console provides most of the UI, and uses the Java-based API when it needs to play a track, apply audio effects, render a sound-wave, or record music.  This Java library then invokes JavaFX callback functions as it is doing its work.

The UI consists of many custom components, some of which subclass CustomNode, and many which subclass Contol (when skinnable and/or highly interactive components are required).  Recording session, mix, and audio data are stored "in the cloud", as they say.  The application is written in JavaFX 1.1, but is being ported to JavaFX 1.2, where performance and memory usage are greatly optimized.

Congrats, and thanks to the Indaba folks!  Please give the music console a whirl and unleash your musical creativity!

Regards,

Jim Weaver